IS THE euro zone at a turning-point? Policymakers, unsurprisingly, would have you believe so. They point to faster-than-expected growth in the fourth quarter of 2014: the euro zone as a whole grew by 0.3% in the quarter, and its biggest economy, Germany, expanded by 0.7%. The European Commission is forecasting growth in 2015 of 1.3%, which would be the euro area's best outcome since 2010.

Still, it's hard to get excited. France and Italy, the zone's second- and third-largest economies, stagnated in the final quarter of the year. Greece's return to the headlines has the potential to unsettle markets. And fears grow that the 18-member currency club may fall into deflation: prices are falling in Germany, Italy and Spain. The ECB has adopted measures to boost prices and growth—most notably by agreeing to a controversial programme of quantitative easing—but it did so for a reason.

Our interactive graphic (updated February 13th 2015) displays the latest economic and fiscal differences across the European Union.

Remember that in the U.S. a dozen states tried to secede from the Union and were crushed by Washington DC...

Some states from the E.U. have been helping other states for decades thanks to the Structural and Cohesion Funds. They have not done it for free because they got free entry to large market share in those states.

Probably many Californians see New Yorkers worse than many French see the Germans. There are different individuals in every state with different views.

Taking into account that the ERM II (Exchange Rate Mechanism) with a fixed exchange rate among those states which later became part of the €urozone had been in place for decades, of course member states were ready. Anyway we can never say that we are not ready for something which has not been tried before in Europe. We are learning from events. Empirical evidence is the road which our Governments follow. Step by step.

18 states in Latin America enjoy a common language, history and culture...but they feel it is not possible to reach a common agreement about anything. They have much less coordination than €urozone member states. And the disparity in the level of life among them is higher than among €urozone member states.

Income per head in all the €urozone is very similar. While income per head in Mississippi is 1/2 of Maryland´s, Spain´s income per head is 3/4 of Germany´s (much less taking into account the underground economy). While in the €urozone there is a similar Social Security system with universal health care, in the U.S. every state has a different health care system...

So, the €urozone was ready. Only as a consequence of the subprime crisis which started in the U.S. in 2008, and which led to a Worldwide credit crunch in 2010 with the consequences we know in the €urozone, things which were supposed to take over a decade to do, are being made in three years.

GDP/person
Countries with high direct investment inflows or with high external debt have a GNI significantly lower than GDP (e.g. Ireland). For this reason, it would be better to use GNI/head instead of GDP/head to compare individual economic well being. The GDP gives on the other side a better view on the relative attractiveness of an economy.

I am not to optimistic about the Greeks, but what they did, was one of the biggest scam ever, and now everybody has to suffer because of them. Think how they manage to get European Union money after money without leaving any clue that they are stealing or doing nothing but truble to Europe..!!!? European Union must do something about this issue fast.

Really informative post. DESPITE greatly improved financial conditions over the past nine months following the pledge by Mario Draghi, head of the European Central Bank, to do “whatever it takes” to save the single currency, the euro area remains mired in recession. Output declined by 0.2% in the first three months of 2013 from its level late last year, the sixth consecutive quarter of a recession that started in late 2011.http://www.puradoroil.com/

I share your concerns and I support the subsidiarity principle. In fact, there is no obligation to join the European union and any member state can leave whenever they want...something which is not true in America, where if one state tries to secede the U.S. Army invades it as has been demonstrated.

The truth is that the romantic nation-state idea is very recent, from the XIX Century, and most countries in the History of the World have been multiethnic and multilingual, with many princes, kings, dukes etc, etc. The nation-state is a recent romantic creation but with an strong attraction. But its base is the TRIBE, belonging to our tribes. The German tribe, the French tribe, the Italian tribe, the English tribes...all of them the result of the amalgamation of several tribes (Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Celts in the U.K.; Saxons, Angles, Swabians, Franks, Prussians etc in Germany...)

The European Union is a coalition of tribes. In North America something similar would have taken place if Natives (Apaches, Seminoles, Cheyennes, Cherokees, Black Feet, Pueblo...) had created a Union.

Anyway, what we have to take into account now in 2012 is what we want to do together for our common interests in a World in which China and the U.S. are leaving Europe behind. We can continue behaving like Lagardere and DASA, or we can create Airbus. Yes, Airbus is not perfect, there are different languages and national interests....but the combined product is better than Boeing. The €uro is based in better economic fundamentals than the USD, lower budget and trade deficits. And it makes accountability easier for multinational companies, and for tourists. So, the €uro is here to stay. I don´t think that a combined European political unity will be called the "U.S. of Europe", which sounds ridiculous, or the "Federation of European Nations"....On the long term what we will see will be a "Europe of Cantons" based on the Swiss model of cantons. There are German, French, Italian and Romanche speaking cantons in Switzerland but all them have a similar size. The same way, in a "Europe of Cantons", Bavaria, Lombardy, Galicia, Bretagne, Flanders, Luxemburg etc, etc will have a similar size so nobody could talk about any nation trying to dominate other nations.

The only alternative which I see, even if a much smaller scale, and withou much less influence in the World, would be an enlarged German Federation which could be called Northern European Federation, in which Flanders, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark, Luxemburg and perhaps Lombardy join the Bundesrepublik as member states with representation in the Bundestag (which would be called Parlament of the Northern European Federation) and representation in the Bundesbank (which would be called Bank of the Northern European Federation)...but this idea, which would have been logical decades ago, now is not possible because Germany´s limited sovereignty after WWII. Now there are still thousands of American troops in German territory, and Germans cannot even manage their own gold.

I actually support the idea of a United States of Europe, but doubt more than I ever did that it will happen.

Nationalism is the enemy of true unity . . . and nationalism is rampant in Europe.

You wouldn't see people from Mississippi carrying posters depicting the residents from other states as Nazis in a very racist way - and vice versa.

A majority of adult Americans doesn't live later in life in the state they were born. State borders are neither cultural nor ethnic boundaries.

A Texan feels at home in Missouri, after he's settled in, and the other way around, while a Spaniard is a 'foreigner' in Europe outside his home country, unless he adopts language and culture like a native.

With few exceptions, in the US all people - cross state lines - share one language and one culture . . . and one common fate as ONE nation.

I think that the unification as Euro was not right choice in the first place. Some people often compare Euro with the United States, but certainly, there are much differences.

1. Before the discussion about Euro unification was raised, Countries now in Euro zone had never thought that they could be united as a one single identity. They all have different languages and cultures. Even, some of them such as Britain and France had long hostile history, so many people living in those countries still bad to one another. As far as I'm concerned, that's why fiscal exchange between countries has been stagnated, and this is the reason why countries like Greece was not recused earlier. Some people compare EU with United States consisting of 51 states. However, for me it seems that a lot of steps still remain for EU to be called European "Real" Union.

2. The matter of a single currency, Euro. I think the single currency is the most crucial cause of this deep economic recession. It is true that there was failure of fiscal policy in the governments of Greece, Spain, and so on. However, I don't think that without Euro, the situation would not have been in such bad condition. The value of Euro was higher than their own currency, which has caused their fiscal deficit to grow much faster.

Because Japan has monetary sovereignty over its currency, meaning that it can technically print money to pay its debt (although this would be a last resort). Greece unfortunately do not have this option and have to either tax it citizens, beg for debt forgiveness or default.

Sir- this is not Europe, but the EU. As you probably know as a chief number cruncher, EFTA methodologies for these basic economic statistics are comparable (UN/ILO/OECD/EUROSTAT). This should also be the case for further countries. I therefore suggest that you take the time to finish coloring your charts before posting them